T. Rex Meets Biblical Text at Museum

The Los Angeles Times ^ | December 9, 2001 | STEPHANIE SIMON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

[StoneColdGOP]

Religion: New Kentucky center will present creationism as science, alarming experts.

FLORENCE, Ky. -- There is no mention of Noah's Ark in most science museums. No mention of the Tower of Babel or the Garden of Eden, either.

Instead, you get dinosaur replicas, fossils, models of spiraling DNA. And informational text promoting what millions of Americans regard as drivel: the idea that all life on Earth evolved over 4 billion years from genetic scraps.

[Eddeche]

Where did you hear this?

It's a quote from the article.

So you are saying animals ate other animals in Eden ?

[wwjdn]

If the zoo declares the lion a carnivore, creationists take pains to remind their children that they believe all animals were vegetarian in Eden, before man's sins brought violence into the world.

This is one interpretation (guess). Scientists only use multiple guesses based on wild theories. Christians, on the other hand, have the Bible which has mostly been proven to be true, some of the Bible was not meant to be proved (it would eliminate faith).

The answer to your other question about the garden of eden, who knows? I do believe that science has failed miserable to explain evolution. In fact there is mounting evidence that shows scientists are now beginning to believe in creationism.

Especially since the utilize carbon dating which is very unreliable, yet they quote it as fact, constantly.

[NoCurrentFreeperByThatName]

Damn - what a HUGE disappointment. Here I make a statement about suing a creationist public school teacher, and I don't draw a single flame.

LOL! bump

[homeschool mama]

Answers in Genesis BUMP!

[homeschool mama]

You assume much but know little.

[Junior]

Logical enough for you?

Not really.

Flying squirrels, frogs, etc. aren't really relevant to the question of flying birds since there is an obvious difference between flying for a few feet and being able to stay aloft for long periods of time at altitude.

Ah, but the ability to fly long distances and stay aloft for long periods of time had to start somewhere, didn't it?  And they are quite relevant to the discussion of the evolution of the wing, are they not?  This evolution, of course, is what you dismiss as being "impossible."  I have shown it isn't.

Bats, moreover, first appear, fully formed, in the cenezoic and there is no evidence on Earth of their having evolved.

Bat evolution is poorly understood because few fossils of bats have been found.  I did find the following sites on bat evolution, though.  Several of the sites point out that there may, in fact, be two completely unrelated orders of bats, indicating that flight developed independently in mammals twice.

• Bat Facts
• BATS MAY HAVE INVENTED FLIGHT TWICE (AT LEAST!)
• Chiropteran Flight
• Evolution of Bats Probed in Genetic Study

I love arguing with you.  I learn so much (just not from you)!

You didn't really explain how the proto bird managed to breathe, while his lungs were in process of 'evolving' from whatever they started out as to the necessary flow-through design or, for that matter, how such a change could even conceivably take place.

Flow-through lungs and hearts aren't necessary for gliding from tree to tree but, if you plan on flying for hours at a stretch, you'll need em.

Not certain what you are talking about here.  I thought we were discussing the impossibility of legs evolving into wings; obviously I made my point or you wouldn't be trying to change the subject, would you?  As for "flow-through lungs" most of the web material dealing with this comes from creationist websites such as Answers in Genesis, which has a spotty track record when it comes to scientific veracity.  However, Researchers are reading the entrails discusses the evolution of bird respiration and concludes with this:

Vertebrate history contains many instances of dramatic changes in breathing systems — from the lung-gill combination of some primitive bony fish to gill-only breathing in ray-finned fish, lung-only breathing in many land-dwelling vertebrates, skin-breathing in some amphibians and so forth. Claims that a particular anatomical shift is impossible may be overstating the case, given the power of evolution to transform.

I'd think that it would be incumbent on those who claim that such evolution is impossible to make a stronger case for it than "I can't imagine it happening, therefore it can't have happened."

You don't really explain how a flight feather could conceivably evolve from anything whose basic purpose was insulation, or how something like the system of rotating flight feathers on their axes to let air pass between them on upstrokes could evolve.

Feathers first appeared on flightless dinosaurs (velociraptor, et al) as an insulator.  For millions of years they did nothing but insulate, period.  Their use in flight is simply a refinement of an existing system (micro-evolution, for the creationist types).

You don't really bother to explain how something which walks in the clumsy fashion birds do (which is necessary due to their balance for flight) could survive for countless generations on land before it became able to fly.

The flightless birds don't seem to have any problem getting around or surviving on the ground.  Pteranodons, with their more primitive wing/claw structure, didn't seem to have any problem getting around or surviving on the ground.  Flying squirrels don't seem to have any problem getting around or surviving on the ground.  Obviously you are overlooking something.

In other words, all I really see from you is rhetoric, BS, and an arrogant attitude.

And facts.  Don't forget facts.  I've answered your allegations with real, honest-to-goodness information.  Flying frogs, flying squirrels, bats, pteranodons, and birds are not BS, nor is the information I presented on them rhetoric (unless you have definitions of BS and rhetoric not shared by the rest of the English-speaking world).  As for attitude, certainly.  But then again you keep making the same asinine assertions over and over and every time someone slaps them down (this time it was my turn).  You never actually seem to learn anything from these encounters; you do no actual research or try to puzzle out the implications of your assertions and when you are shown to be wrong you are impervious to change.  And, I'm not the only one who has noticed this.  You are a true-to-life internet celebrity with nearly a dozen websites devoted specifically to your "impervious rationalizations."  Truthfully, it would be difficult for me not to adopt an attitude in my transactions with you.

[StoneColdGOP]

LOL! No flames here, pallie..

[FreePaul]

Good job but I'm afraid all of your work has been for naught in this case. I hope not but experience shows otherwise.

[medved]

And facts. Don't forget facts. I've answered your allegations with real, honest-to-goodness information.

Really?

The two sites you note regarding bats do not contradict my claim that there is no evidence of their evolving at all. Moreover, there is no evidence of any of the world's gliding creatures ever even thinking about flapping or trying to take the first step towards bathood. Think about it; if it were possible for a flying squirrel to evolve into a bat, don't you think you'd see one or two of them trying to flap at least once in a while?

As to flightless birds, they all basically DEvolved from flying birds, the legs becoming more functional after flight was lost. My original point still stands. To become a flying bird, you need first develop the basic balance parameters of a flying bird and then learn to fly, and that means walking around in a hobbled condition when on the ground. Think of it this way: How many times have you seen a bird scuttering around with an injured wing? How long did any such creature last before one of the neighborhood dogs or cats got him? What's the record? A day? Day and a half??

Finally, you haven't really provided any kind of an explaination for going from an insulation/down feather to a flight feather:

That is just hugely different from any kind of a down feather, all of those interlatched barbules which work just like velcro; no combination of random mutations and "selection" could get you from the one to the other.

[AnnaZ]

xo

[Junior]

And facts. Don't forget facts. I've answered your allegations with real, honest-to-goodness information.

Really?

The two sites you note regarding bats do not contradict my claim that there is no evidence of their evolving at all.

I gave you four sites on bats.  Bat evolution is sketchy, as noted by the sites, because of the dearth of fossil evidence.  As the creationist crowd is fond of saying, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, or something like that.

Moreover, there is no evidence of any of the world's gliding creatures ever even thinking about flapping or trying to take the first step towards bathood. Think about it; if it were possible for a flying squirrel to evolve into a bat, don't you think you'd see one or two of them trying to flap at least once in a while?

Maybe they haven't gotten that far along yet?  I mean, after all, even the bats had to start somewhere, and you have to glide before you can flap, so to speak.  Who knows what flying squirrels (or flying frogs) will look like in a few tens of thousands of years?

As to flightless birds, they all basically DEvolved [sic] from flying birds, the legs becoming more functional after flight was lost.

There is no such thing as devolution.  Evolution means change.  The opposite of change is stasis; therefore devolution would mean nothing changes.

My original point still stands. To become a flying bird, you need first develop the basic balance parameters of a flying bird and then learn to fly, and that means walking around in a hobbled condition when on the ground.

The critters with half wings/half legs don't seem to have any problems.  I have yet to see a bat hobbling around helpless, or a flying squirrel, flying frog, flying lemur, flying snake or flying fish (okay, the last one doesn't hobble around on the ground, but its wings don't seem to hinder its swimming).  Pterosaurs, such as Rhamphorrhynchus, "scuttered around" on four feet when not flying, and it didn't seem to bother them any -- and they were actual flyers, not just gliders.  Once again you are personalizing here -- just because you cannot imagine it happening doesn't mean it can't.  And obviously these critters are, or were, getting by without problems, so your contention falls on its face.

Think of it this way: How many times have you seen a bird scuttering around with an injured wing? How long did any such creature last before one of the neighborhood dogs or cats got him? What's the record? A day? Day and a half??

Please see my notes, above.  The pre-avian therapod dinosaurs were already bipedal so their reliance upon their forelegs is a moot point.  Even if their forelegs had developed umbrellas, it wouldn't have affected their movement on the ground.

Finally, you haven't really provided any kind of an explaination [sic] for going from an insulation/down feather to a flight feather:

That is just hugely different from any kind of a down feather, all of those interlatched barbules which work just like velcro; no combination of random mutations and "selection" could get you from the one to the other.

Feathers derive from the same anatomical structure that gives rise to scales in reptiles and hair in mammals.  Feathers, and not just down, are extremely efficient insulators, and imprints of barbed feathers nearly identical to modern bird feathers have been found with the remains of flightless therapod dinosaurs.  The fact that these type of feathers are also beneficial for flying is a bonus; with a little "micro-evolution" they became the flight feathers we know today.  Please note that feathers are not required for flight.  Of all the critters that evolved flight, only birds have feathers; bats, flying squirrels, flying lemurs and pterosaurs had fur; flying frogs have slimy frog skin; flying snakes and insects have scales.

[xm177e2]

People have wiggled their ears for centuries. Applying your theory to humans, Ross Perot should be able to fly.

I'll answer this seriously... flapping your ears gives you no real benefit, and it probably takes more energy than it's worth. People never started flapping their ears, and it doesn't give us any real survival beneft (or benefit with landing sexual partners) so we never evolved "better" ones.

[xm177e2]

none of which would be useful at all until the final day on which the whole thing worked

That's just not true. Half-evolved wings could have some use. Just look at the progression of the evolution of the human eye. It started with a few light-sensitive cells, which eventually fell into sunken pits to protect them, which then closed off to all but a pinhole, to get more accurate readings of light, which then filled with fluid and was capped with a clear membrane to hold that fluid in. The clear membrane became rigid, and then it became a lens. At every step of this evolution, the eye is useful--it's just getting more and more useful!

If there is no such thing as evolution, how do you explain the "blind spot" in human vision, where the optic nerve passes through the retina? How do you explain the "backwards" design of the retina, which has light pass through the blood cells and rods/cones before getting to the retina, which the light then bounces off of to hit the rods and cones? Why aren't our eyes like octopus eyes, which have the blood cells on the outside and the nerve cells facing out?

[Cleburne]

Just look at bugs. They started out using gills to breathe underwater--and when the gills became a certain size, they began using them as wings. They were able to jump long distances, and later (as they evolved), to fly.

Are you being sarcastic?

[Cogadh na Sith]

Bats are bugs. I learned that from Calvin & Hobbes.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"And informational text promoting what millions of Americans regard as drivel..."

Millions(?) of 'enlightened' Eurpopeans regarded the 'round earth' theory as drivel. And yet, they were wrong. Seems to me there needs to be a better method for disproving a theory. Which is what all reputable scientists regard Natural Selection as....a theory. Yet creationists present their ideas on the origins of species as fact.
I'm not looking for an argument and I'm sure most of you will make me sorry for opening my mouth (so to speak). Just pointing out a couple of things I've noticed.

[N. Theknow]

Isn't it funny how the most educated among us (scientists etc.) accept evolution and the least educated (Bible-thumpers etc.) accept this "creation science" nonsense? Just food for thought...

Spoken like a true fossil-thumper!

[medved]

If there is no such thing as evolution, how do you explain the "blind spot" in human vision, where the optic nerve passes through the retina? How do you explain the "backwards" design of the retina, which has light pass through the blood cells and rods/cones before getting to the retina, which the light then bounces off of to hit the rods and cones? Why aren't our eyes like octopus eyes, which have the blood cells on the outside and the nerve cells facing out?

Why aren't all cars and trucks perfect? Does their being imperfect mean they weren't designed?

Does everything which was ever designed have to have been designed by an omnipotent, omniscient, loving god? Is it not more likely that whoever designed biting flies and mosquitos was some sort of an asshole?

To me at least, the evidence not only says engineering and re-engineering of biological forms in some past age, but it also says that there was more than one set of hands in it.

[agarrett]

You would be suprised at the number of scientists that believe in God, or at least an intelligent designer that started things.

  Perhaps. But you'd only be surprised because the number is so much lower than you expected.

  Perhaps I exaggerate, but certainly not by much. I have my Ph.D. in Physics. As of this date, I have never met a single scientist (at least in Physics) who was willing to admit to belief in any religious creation. A previous poster had said he knew several astronomers who believed. I'd love to know who, because that also contradicts my own experience.

  Now, most scientists are hardly raving atheists either. For the most part, it's just too much trouble arguing with people, and we'd much rather get back to doing work.

Drew Garrett